Afghan Offensive Pushes Militants to Kandahar

Back in Home City, Taliban Use Bombs, Threats to Undermine Local Officials

By

Yaroslav Trofimov

Updated Nov. 3, 2010 12:01 a.m. ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- American operations to clear the Taliban from villages around Kandahar are pushing insurgents into the city, where the militants' campaign of assassinations and bombings is undermining efforts to stabilize Afghanistan's second-largest metropolis.

Regional Violence

Though coalition and Afghan officials say they expected such a Taliban influx, insurgent intimidation is stalling efforts to build credible government institutions—a buildup without which battleground advances can't hold.

Two-thirds of the 119 budgeted city government jobs remain unfilled, despite generous U.S.-funded salaries, as municipal workers are assassinated or quit under what they say are Taliban threats. Kandahar's deputy mayor and his successor were both gunned down in recent months. Last week, another city employee was shot.

Over the past week, Taliban fighters on motorbikes have also swarmed roads in the heart of the city at night, checking motorists' documents and warning them against collaborating with the government, witnesses and coalition officials say.

"Nobody wants to work with me—they're all afraid," said Kandahar Mayor Hamid Haidari, sitting in his office in the unlit, nearly deserted municipal building amid a recent power blackout. "Everyone wants to stay alive." Mr. Haidari himself kept away from the office for 10 days last month after a warning that he would be targeted by a Taliban suicide bomber.

This climate of fear clashes with optimistic assessments by coalition and Afghan commanders, who say intensive military operations over the past two months have dealt a major blow to the Taliban in this southern province, the focus of President Barack Obama's troop surge. U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus plans to showcase progress in southern Afghanistan's Helmand and Kandahar provinces this month at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Portugal, and during a U.S. policy review in December, coalition officials say.

Kandahar, southern Afghanistan's economic and political hub, is the birthplace of the Taliban movement. "It's strategically important—both for the government and for the Taliban," said the provincial chief of police, Gen. Sardar Mohammed Zazai.

U.S. and Afghan troops' push in Kandahar province in recent weeks has succeeded in seizing Taliban redoubts in the rural districts of Arghandab, Zhari and Panjway surrounding Kandahar city, and in the southwestern suburbs of Mahalajat.

Faced with an overwhelming force, the insurgents abandoned areas the Taliban had ruled for years, often melting away without a fight.

Now, "after we've cleared their totemic heartland, they're trying to surge into the city," says U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey Martindale, commander of the 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, the coalition unit responsible for Kandahar city and Arghandab.

American officials say the jump in Taliban activity in the city wasn't unexpected and shouldn't be viewed as a sign that the Kandahar campaign, whose ultimate goal is to secure the metropolis, is failing.

"One of the things we see is that sometimes attack levels go up when the enemy is at their weakest," said the brigade's executive officer, Lt. Col. David Meyer.

The recent uptick of strikes from improvised explosive devices in the city has had limited impact, Col. Martindale added, explaining that the attacks have been led by second- and third-tier commanders who usually lack the sophistication and resources to mount major bombings.

"But it demonstrates that they are still there," Col. Martindale said. "And in some cases, that's enough to scare people away."

Taliban violence is keeping many locals away from government jobs. Until this summer, Eliyas Rahimi earned 78,000 afghanis, or $1,730, a month, a princely amount by Afghan standards, as a public-relations consultant for the municipality.

In August, he began receiving warning phone calls from the Taliban, which he says he initially dismissed as pranks.

Then the caller recounted Mr. Rahimi's daily schedule, a sign he was under surveillance.

The 23-year-old says he threw out his cellphone and never showed up at the office again. "Anyone can be targeted here—and after you're dead, that is it. Nobody cares," said Mr. Rahimi, who remains unemployed.

Many victims of the violence end up in Kandahar's main hospital, Mirwais. Well over a dozen patients suffering from gunshot injuries and fragmentation wounds from IEDs are admitted daily, doctors say.

On Sunday, a bearded Afghan man, registered as "No Name" in the hospital entry book, and a 12-year-old boy were wheeled in on blood-stained gurneys. A police patrol that dropped them off didn't know their identities.

The man, hit with four bullets and pronounced dead minutes later, was wrapped in a white shroud and pushed into the corner as doctors tried to rescue the boy, naked except for a crimson-red bandage on his head.

The next day, the victims' relatives crowded at the intensive-care ward near the boy's bed. The father, Popolzai, had been a tribal elder, a frequent target for insurgents. The boy, Sakhidad, remained in critical condition.

"Every morning, whenever we step out of our homes, we're afraid we'll be killed," said a cousin, Mohammed Akbar.

Relatives of another shooting victim, a municipal employee named Samiullah, gathered around the adjoining bed. The man, unconscious, writhed as he was hooked up to a rusted oxygen tank. Two assassins' bullets had torn through his abdomen last week.

Samiullah's brother-in-law, Ahmad, scoffed at the idea that recent military operations brought improved security to the city.

"The government lost control," he said. "What security are they talking about when killers can come to your doorstep and shoot you in the chest in the center of the city?"

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